At Yagla Engineering Services, we pride ourselves on the many diverse, award-winning projects we help build. From yoga studios to hospitals to restaurants to multi-family, we provide MEP engineering design services. Now we can add cannabis cultivation to our list as we are providing services to a craft grower.

What exactly is a craft grower? Well, they definitely aren’t cultivating macaroni necklaces or cross-stitching. A craft grower is “a facility operated by an organization or business that is licensed by the Department of Agriculture to cultivate, dry, cure, and package cannabis or use at a processing organization.”

Cannabis isn’t just “weed”. There are different classifications. Aaron Cadena wrote an amazing article for Medium that does an excellent job of explaining those classifications and the difference between hemp and marijuana. For our purposes, we are going to focus on marijuana, both medicinal and recreational.

Marijuana has brought in approximately $15 billion for the US in 2019 with Washington state, California, and Colorado bringing in record numbers. Predictions are that sales will rise steadily. So much so that by 2024, marijuana sales will climb up to $37 billion! Currently, there are 33 states that have legalized marijuana. Of that, eleven have legalized it for recreational use. The legalization of marijuana has created more than 64,000 jobs in 2018 across the country in all industries from agriculture to retail. 

To get righteous buds, you can’t just “plant it and forget it”. Growth and cultivation has to be meticulous and precise because there are so many factors to keep in mind.

“To properly cultivate a marijuana or cannabis plant, a grower must pay close attention to the plant at each stage of its life cycle and maintain exact conditions in its environment, such as proper temperature, lighting, and humidity.” [Source]

Humidity and lighting must be precise to prevent mold, cross contamination, and control odor. Lighting is used to enable photosynthesis but mustn’t affect the temperature. Marijuana is grown in sealed rooms with exact specifications for each stage of growth from vegetation to flowering. For this reason, YES is the perfect engineering company to tackle this project. Our experts in HVAC and electrical engineering will certainly have their hands full, but are more than ready for the challenge.